TL;DR Breakdown:
- IOHK says the criticism around the Cardano concurrency issue on Minswap is only FUD and misinformation.
- Many developers and projects have already come up with solutions to address the problem.
- Cardano is using a novel ledger approach, unlike other smart contract blockchains.
Input-Output HK (IOHK), the development team behind Cardano blockchain, recently published a thread of tweets addressing criticisms around the Cardano concurrency issue discovered on Minswap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) based on Cardano. The organization dismissed the speculations as misinformation and FUD.
Users worried amid Cardano concurrency issue
The smart contract functionality was successfully implemented on the Cardano public testnet on September 2, enabling developers to build and test the network before the mainnet launch scheduled on September 12. However, in the process, users on Minswap reported concurrency issues with the blockchain, which meant “only one user can interact with a smart contract per block/transaction.”
The Cardano concurrency issue faced on Minswap resulted in criticisms that the blockchain is inefficient and may not hold. According to IOHK, the claims are only misinformation. The organization pointed out that other projects launched on the testnet are able to address the issue.
We are very pleased to see that developers are already testing on the #Cardano Testnet as they continue to prepare their DApps for market. Congratulations to @MinswapDEX. This is what a testnet is for. Please give them your support. 9/n
— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) September 5, 2021
Cardano’s unique ledger approach
The issue with Cardano concurrency is probably due to the lack of a “Cardano Virtual Machine,” just like the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that ensures concurrency of transactions on smart contracts. Cardano is introducing a novel ledger approach, which it says would allow powerful parallelization.
The specific flavor #Cardano uses is the eUTxO – or extended model which we believe offers greater security, allows for fee predictability (no nasty surprises…) and offers more powerful parallelization. 3/n
— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) September 5, 2021
SundaeSwap is one of the projects on Cardano that were able to work around the issue. It mentioned in the report that Cardano could actually handle hundreds of transactions per block, in contrast to the criticisms that the blockchain allows one transaction per block.
“The rumors of Cardano’s death have been greatly exaggerated. There are solutions to the problems seen today, benefits to the ways Cardano has been designed, and both a bright future and an intense design discovery phase ahead,” SundaeSwap wrote.
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